Abstract

The painted lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui) (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae: Nymphalinae) is well known for its seasonal long-distance migrations and for its dramatic population fluctuations between years. Although parasitism has occasionally been noted as an important mortality factor for this butterfly, no comprehensive study has quantified and compared its parasitoid complexes in different geographical areas or seasons. In 2009, a year when this butterfly was extraordinarily abundant in the western Palaearctic, we assessed the spatial and temporal variation in larval parasitism in central Morocco (late winter and autumn) and north-east Spain (spring and late summer). The primary parasitoids in the complexes comprised a few relatively specialized koinobionts that are a regular and important mortality factor in the host populations. However, there was a strong seasonal variation in the level of parasitism. In Spain percentage parasitism was more than four times higher in late summer than in spring (77.3% vs. 18%), while in Morocco it was five times higher by the end of winter than in the autumn (66.2% vs. 13.2%). In both regions the build up of parasitoid populations occurred after V. cardui had bred in the same general area over successive generations, and this may represent a selective force favouring seasonal migration to enemy-free space.